Renewable Books Leads Industry with Green Initiatives

Random House parent company Bertelsmann recently announced the admirable goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. We here at Renewable Books applaud the initiative, though we would also like to take this opportunity to highlight our revolutionary advancements in eco-publishing.

Renewable Books prides itself on being the greenest publishing house in the world. Our books are printed domestically, we use only post-consumer waste paper, and Greta Thunberg responds affirmatively to 95 percent of our blurb requests. But that’s not all: Renewable’s devotion to the environment extends to all facets of the publishing process.

Our Offices:

Renewable’s Platinum LEED offices boast high-efficiency lighting, appliances, and plumbing, as well as state-of-the-art solar panels. A bike path directly links the downtown light rail station to our courtyard; our decorators only use low VOC paints; and the majority of our energy needs are met by our in-house publicists, who spew the hot air required to power two steam-engine generators.

As we are of the opinion that the current threat posed by climate change more than justifies a principled rejection of copyright law, we actively encourage our authors and editors to recycle plots, characters, and dialogue from previously successful books.

Not Our Books:

While we value and advocate for transgressive literature, we prohibit the following material: scenes in which a car is needlessly idling; plot twists involving GMOs; any expression of lustful feelings for an offshore driller.

Editorial Philosophy:

We at Renewable Books feel that typos, misspellings, and consistency issues are vital components of a sustainable literary ecosystem, and that pencil-wielding humans should in no way tamper with the written word’s thriving biodiversity. This policy has saved us from needlessly printing millions of errata slips over the past decades.

Submissions:

To cut down on paper-wasting correspondence, our editors never confirm that an author’s submission has been accepted, even after the writers come across their published work in a bookstore.

We invite rejected authors to visit our offices, where their tears are funneled into our desalination plant to provide water for drought-stricken communities.

We only consider submissions from free-range, grass-fed writers who are permitted by their employer or MFA thesis adviser to walk outside for several hours a day.

Doing Your Part:

Being part of a green literary community means doing your part. To that end:

Renewable Books encourages readers to enjoy our books on public transport or at home with all the lights turned off.

In an effort to cut down on polluting chemicals and colorants, we have developed a patented ink-conservation technology that prints every other word of the text, omissions that you shouldn’t notice if you take our suggestion to read in the dark.

Review Copies and Blurbs:

Rather than sending galleys across the country, Renewable Books makes one copy of each book available in its offices to pre-qualified local reviewers. We ask critics to refrain from leaving marginalia and not to bother our publicists when they are busy in the steam-engine room.

E-Books:

We do not publish e-books at this time.

Sailing Ahead:

In lieu of 401(k)s, all employees—along with authors who meet certain sales figures—receive guaranteed berths aboard the Proof of Life, a seaworthy printing press built to withstand the coming flood. Sooner or later, she will set sail on the rising oceans, producing timeless works of literature for the end times.

Apply nicknames to anyone at any time. They should come from references to your life, rather than theirs. Spend time convincing others of things with an exclamation point, especially when you know to opposite to be true. Remember that the weather is always against you. It singles you out.

Let me ask you a question, my friends. When was the last time an American won the Nobel Prize? Do you know the answer? It was 1993, and it was an African-American woman! Nothing against African-American women, okay? African-American women, some of them, they’re gorgeous. Perfect 10s. But still, you gotta wonder: 23 years ago, and it was a black lady. Before that, you have to go back to 1976 – and it was a Jewish guy! Now, I love the Jewish people, and we all know the African Americans love me, but seriously, it tells you something when you have to go back to 1962 to find a real American Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

Our literature is slipping, folks. We’re losing our edge. It’s sad. It’s just so damn sad. You know why we’re slipping? Because our colleges are run by politically correct guilty white liberals who hate America. Oh my God, America’s college professors are so dumb. I could have been a professor, okay? Believe me, I’m a terrific teacher. People love it when I explain stuff to them. It’s a gift I have. But why would want to be a professor? Sure, I could sleep with some cute coeds. But think about it: Do you see many college professors married to supermodels? Do you see college professors with personal brands worth $5 billion. No, you don’t. And you know why? Because they’re so dumb.

You know how you can tell they’re dumb? From the books they teach. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The Interpreter of Maladies. The House on Mango Street. Anybody here read The House on Mango Street? I haven’t, either. I’m a businessman worth $10 billion. I don’t read books unless I wrote them, and even then I’m selective. But they’re teaching The House on Mango Street like crazy in English Departments across America – or at least they were in the 1990s, which just goes to show you how current my information is. The author of that book is Sandra Cisneros, who is, I believe, a Mexican. She was born in the United States, okay, but her parents are Mexican. So she’s Mexican. It doesn’t matter where you’re born, not if you’re black or brown. President Obama was born in Hawaii and his mother was a white woman, and yet the man’s Kenyan. It’s so obvious, if you think about it.

Anyway, there she is, this Sandra Cisneros, on college reading lists along with Edwidge Danticat and Jhumpa Lahiri and Junot Díaz and all these other foreigners, and THEY’RE TAKING JOBS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. Good, hard-working American authors like Jonathan Franzen and John Irving and Richard Ford. Time magazine, which is, to be honest with you, this close to losing its press credentials with me, but anyway, Time called Jonathan Franzen “The Great American Novelist.” “The Great American Novelist,” my friends, and he can’t get onto a university syllabus to save his life. He’s too “commercial,” they say. He doesn’t play nice with Oprah. And, oh yeah, they never say it because they’re too politically correct, but he’s too white. That’s the real problem with Jonathan Franzen. He’s too white, too male, and too straight. Sorry, Jonathan. Three strikes and you’re out.

We’re going to take back the Western canon, folks. We are going to build a big beautiful wall around books written by white people and we’re going to make the immigrants and the African-American writers pay for it. Foreign writers are eating our lunch right now. We used to dominate the world of letters. The Russians, the Chinese, even the French – they all read our books. We used to be feared and loved around the world. And now look at us. Look who’s winning Nobel prizes these days. Svetlana Alexievich? Patrick Modiano? Mo Yan? I mean, what the hell kind of name is Mo Yan? Is that a guy? A girl? Which bathroom does Mo Yan use in North Carolina? Hah! Ha! Ha! Ha! Damn, I’m funny. I’ve gotta tweet that. But this is serious stuff, folks. These foreign writers are winning the Nobel Prize year after year, and we’re letting it happen. They’re shlonging us and we’re so stupid and lazy and politically correct that we like getting shlonged!

Well, no more.

When I’m President, I’ll ban all books by immigrant writers until we can figure out what the hell is going on with the Western Canon. I’ll ban translations by foreign authors, too. We’ll ban so many books it’ll make your head spin, folks. We’ll empty out the university book stores! We’ll clear whole shelves from the library! We’ll fire all the politically correct professors who hate America! We’ll build piles of books as high as one of my big, beautiful, classy hotels, and we’ll burn them all to ashes!

And when we’re done, my fellow Americans, we will make the Western Canon great again.

(Hat tip to frequent Millions commenter Moe Murph, who supplied the headline for this piece.)

EXT. CITY ALLEYWAY. NIGHT.
Police tape marks the scene. Red and blue lights flash. A young, nervous-looking BEAT COP sees STRUNK and WHITE approaching.
BEAT COP
It’s over here, detectives. The body was found about an hour ago.
STRUNK
Use the active voice, rookie.
BEAT COP
Oh god, it’s horrible. I feel nauseous.
STRUNK
Unless you mean you’re sickening to contemplate, you mean “nauseated.” Now get out of my crime scene before you puke all over it.
WHITE (inspecting the body)
It’s definitely our guy, Strunk.
STRUNK
The Crossword Killer?
WHITE
Yeah. And look, he’s getting more confident. This time, he used a pen.
INT. POLICE STATION, POLICE CHIEF’S OFFICE. DAY
The POLICE CHIEF, an older man with his pants perilously slung below a heavy beer belly, yanks open his office door.
POLICE CHIEF
Strunk! White! Get your asses in here!
STRUNK and WHITE enter, shooting sidelong glances at each other. Before they can sit, the COMMISSIONER flings a newspaper at them; WHITE clumsily catches it.
POLICE CHIEF
Look at this disaster!
WHITE (reading the headlines)
“Police Not Effective as Campus Stalked by Crossword Killer, Student Body in Terror.” Oh, Christ, what a mess.
STRUNK
Indeed.
POLICE CHIEF
You’re damn right it is! I just got off the phone with the mayor, and let me tell you, she is not happy!
STRUNK
I can see why. An evasive denial rather than a definite assertion, the passive voice — haven’t the copy writers even taken basic composition? And that gruesome phrase, “student body”! My god! “Studentry” is a much more elegant term! Or simply “students.”
POLICE CHIEF
I’m not talking about the goddamn grammar, I’m talking about this investigation! If you two don’t make an arrest soon, I’ll have your asses in a sling!
WHITE
Don’t you mean “slings,” Chief? I mean, if asses is plural–
POLICE CHIEF
Get the hell outta my office!
INT. DINER. NIGHT.
Rain trickles down the plate glass windows of the seedy diner. WHITE idly spins his lucky blue pencil on the tabletop as he talks. STRUNK listens, sipping coffee.
WHITE
It was my first month on the job, you know? I was young. I thought I could make a difference. And then we got the call…some kids had been screwing around on an overpass, smoking weed, spraying graffiti. This one kid — he couldn’t have been more than 13 — he was dangling way over the edge, trying to write “NYPD SUCKS ITS OWN DICK.” At least, that’s what his friends said he was going to write. He only made it as far as the “its.” He was reaching, trying to add an apostrophe, when he fell. The kid…his mother said he wanted to go to culinary school. Traffic was heavy that night. Lots of trucks. That damn, unnecessary apostrophe. By the time they scraped him off the highway, there was barely enough left of him to fill a shoebox.
WHITE begins to sob quietly. STRUNK hesitates, then reaches out and takes WHITE’S hand, stopping the movement of the pencil.
STRUNK
It’s okay. It’s okay, partner. Next time you could omit needless words, but it’s okay.
EXT. ROOFTOP. NIGHT.
The CROSSWORD KILLER holds both WHITE and PRISCILLA at gunpoint at the ledge, while STRUNK holds his own gun on the KILLER, uncertain whether to shoot. WHITE, barely on his feet, presses his hand to a wound in his side.
CROSSWORD KILLER
What’s it gonna be, Strunk? If you shoot me, I’ll still be able to kill one of them! You can’t save them both! So what’ll it be — your partner, five letters, Walter _____ of Breaking Bad? Or your recently reconciled ex-wife, nine letters, beloved of Miles Standish? Who do you choose? Who?
STRUNK (coldly)
It’s “whom,” motherfucker.
STRUNK fires between the KILLER’S eyes. He tumbles off the rooftop, screaming. STRUNK rushes to WHITE and PRISCILLA. She embraces him, sobbing, while STRUNK helps WHITE to his feet. WHITE grasps STRUNK’S hand forcibly.
WHITE
Thanks, partner. Standing on that ledge, staring into those crazy eyes, life never seemed so precious.
STRUNK
Dangling participle, partner.
WHITE
I’m getting too old for this.